Progress, un-progress, and Next Steps
27 days ago
– Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 09:40:24 AM
Hello friends, I know we're long overdue for an update, and I'm here to share where we are. There's good news, bad news, and medium news.
The good news is, we've got a path forward with the box, and it's not going to require us to redesign the Mission Control Board (MCB), or any other components aside from repositioning some art assets on the sides. We're moving this project to use our new factory partners (the ones who produced Innovation Ultimate, and the new printings of several of our other games. The other production partners we explored options with during the second half of last year did not pan out, unfortunately, and this wasted a decent chunk of time. Apologies for that.
The bad news is annoying but not catastrophic. If you've seen my other updates on socials or projects, you'll know I was the victim of a bit of malware. It was not nearly as bad as it could've been, but to be safe, I reformatted + rebuilt Windows on my local machine. One of the things that unfortunately did not survive that process was my personal work on Odysseys from September onward. To be clear - this does not affect any of the story or art or files, this is the work I was doing for final print preparations and hadn't checked back in to the Google Drive. All of the core work for the game is safely backed up in multiple places, but I will need to re-do 30~40ish hours of work that happened during the Fall and early Winter. With the Olympics coming up, it'll probably be what I do while watching too many Curling matches :)
The medium news is the schedule. I had hoped to be at print in December. Once we lock in the packaging with the factory, I'll get the final layout steps done. We should have the specs on that soon, which should be just in time for me to do after re-doing the work mentioned above.
Lunar New Year is approaching so the factory will be off for a couple weeks, and after that we expect to have samples and some 3D renders of the box and how things fit inside it to share in March.
Assuming no other issues arise, we should have the game files submitted for print shortly after that. Once the game is in production, we will start doing the address updates and such.
Thanks everyone for sticking with us over the long adventure! Stay warm out there, its a chilly time.
Production and Fulfillment
5 months ago
– Wed, Oct 08, 2025 at 08:50:31 AM
Hello, friends across Space and Time, I am here with a logistics update. First off, we've completed writing and editing! The stories are done, all eight bazillion branches of possibilities, so now we are working on tackling the next phase: Production.
Obviously, its been a long time since we started work on this project, and a lot has changed around the world in that time. This has affected some things, and we're working to get through some new obstacles.
Production
When Odysseys was initially envisioned, it was to be four 100-ish page books in a box, with maps, cards, etc. We got quotes for that, and our plans for the box were made with those specs in mind. As we've discussed a bit this year, the amount of writing grew, and we'll be delivering you all over 750 pages of content across two books and the almanac. This has unexpectedly caused some significant problems with box design in recent testing, and we're in the midst of figuring out how best to address it.
In addition (and partly as a result of the delays), we're now going to be using a different factory. We're working on getting everything in the game re-quoted with a couple factory options and also sorting out plans for a functional box given the book size increases. This will likely require some changes to the box art, but not in a way that needs a lot of design work. Just some repositioning of elements and perhaps a little more dark border than initially planned. When we have pictures of samples, we'll share them.
Obviously, this has to be solved before we can go to print, and we're trying to get everything in order as quickly as possible. We definitely do not want to ship you all a product where the box splits open.
Fulfillment
We sent out surveys in BackerKit a long time ago, and with the exception of add-ons (plushies, pins, canvas prints), nothing was charged since we were waiting for fulfillment to begin. Addresses and credit cards are likely out of date, and the most sane course of action is likely going to be to un-lock all of the surveys and have everyone re-enter information. We'll start on this process after the production issues are solved, because we only want to have addresses and CCs entered one more time!
In the meantime, don't worry about sending us address updates - we'll take care of that all at once.
I'll give an update at the start of November with information on how we'll be proceeding. It's annoying to spend time on production stuff that we thought was fine, but it's good that we discovered it before it caused issues for everyone.
Summer Update: Books Laid Out, Many Pagess
7 months ago
– Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 12:46:39 PM
Hello friends and galactic associates! I am here to share updates on our progress, as is tradition. This update will be on the shorter side, because most of what we're working on is technical rather than flashy/exciting to show.
Quick version: The books are laid out and test-exported in PDF form! We're copyediting the Almanac/Rulebook right now, and applying the last few edits in the storybooks. Final playtesting and then Production remain.
Layouts and Page Counts
Exports from the database of all story content to InDesign are complete. Books 1 and 2 comprise over 700 pages. That is a bit more than we planned, but it turns out we had a lot of awesome stories to tell you (and that I made a modest miscalculation on header padding when I did earlier page estimates in updates past).
Copyediting on the stories is complete, and is proceeding on the rulebook and the Almanac. Things there are moving along smoothly, it's much easier to edit a list of terms than it is a non-linear story!
A handful of small artwork tasks (a couple stickers and achievements) are outstanding, plus any artwork tweaks we need to make based on production/box size.
Playtesting
We'll be doing a few live playtests with new players with the finished rulebook once it's ready - with the goal being that they will learn it from the rulebook themselves, so we can make sure things are clear and proper!
Factory and Production
With the page count increases, we're discussing with the factory how to safely and securely package things in a box for your shelves. We've got some good options, just need to nail down what's going to work best. Production will be the focus of our next update, with copyediting and file changes drawing it a close.
Thank you all again for your patience, and we hope you are having a good Summer!
A Storybook Layout
8 months ago
– Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 09:47:47 AM
Hello crew,
First, it was cold Spring. Then, it was hot Spring, then it was warm Spring again and now it's instant Summer! As the wise Plumplim meteorologist Blosso Flooproot once said: "The only one surprised by the weather is the one paying attention to it." Wise words, indeed. Despite all the wacky weather, we've been working lots!
Writing and Editing Update
Story writing is complete! A handful of Almanac entries are still being written, and we've continued to make tweaks as needed based on things that the copy editor brings to our attention. There are only two chapters left still being copyedited, and that work will rap up in the next couple weeks. Once that's complete, we'll do copyediting on the Almanac, Rulebook, and individual cards - a process that is much simpler than copyediting prose. It's mostly looking for typos.
The many writers on the project have done wonderful work throughout the course of the project, and we're thankful to all of them. They wrote a lot, and in fact - they wrote a little more than we'd calculated during our last page estimate.
Our original estimate for this game was 4 books of smaller chapters, totaling around 400 pages (100 per book). As we've mentioned, we realized that the stories we wanted to tell needed more depth per chapter, which we estimated at 2x200. But as we've gotten into actual layout, we've realized our estimation calculations were off and it's going to be more than that. (Long story short, Chris made a math error!) Depending on some final layout decisions and the last bits of copyediting, we will be delivering you someplace between 600 and 700 pages of content.
We love every word of it, and we think you will too :)
Layout Update
Yes, that's right. We're doing layout! We've beenbringing the stories from our database into inDesign files to get them ready for printing. This will finally give us the actual page counts for each of the Storybooks. Here's a glimpse of a few chapters in Book 1:
Each chapter has its own color scheme for headers and cross-section of the map art for the page footer. This makes flipping through the books easier, because you can tell quickly if you've gone too far.
With all the story-writing in place, the other task to take care of is running all of the cards through inDesign using the DataMerge feature. This feature lets us convert the tables that include all the text for our Location Cards and Feature cards and into actual card layouts that include all of the correct graphics in the correct locations. Thankfully, this is a mostly automatic process! It just needs to be done last in case there had been any changes to location titles.
We're also wrapping up the final box design. In addition to the beautiful watercolor piece we've shared before, it also features sections from the Map illustrations on the sides, and some different options we're testing for display on store shelves.
Rulebook Update
In the background, we've been working on the Rulebook. The "Odyssey Operations Manual" is written and laid out in inDesign, and we'll be testing it shortly on some new players. Assuming that goes well, we'll do a copyediting pass on it, make any changes, and lock it in!
What's Next
With writing done, copyediting almost done, and component layout proceeding, we turn to the world of Factory. With finalized page, card, and component counts (and things like the height of the box, which depended on these things) we'll be able to lock down final quotes and get production underway.
We are continuing to monitor the tariff situations and figuring out how best to navigate - it's been a wild ride this year and we really hope stability is going to be the norm for the rest of the year.
The Elephant in the Cargo Bay
11 months ago
– Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 09:29:56 AM
Editing Update
Sarah here, bringing you an update on the editing status. Since last time, we've continued our work going through Chapter by Chapter and reviewing/copyediting all the written text for the entire game. So far, we have completed Book 1 and are halfway through Book 2.
Continuity
Checking the continuity from blurb to blurb has turned out to be the most tricky part of this process. As you may remember, the story that you will read when you play 1001 Odysseys is made up of many Blurbs that you combine as you make choices. It's very easy to make sure that each Blurb is consistent within itself because the entire blurb appears on the screen at the same time. It's very easy to check that the game components will get you to the end of the Chapter, we have a tool for that. For the full continuity check, I'm also checking the content of each blurb against other Blurbs that come before and/or after it. This means diving back into the Chapter flowcharts to answer questions like, "has the crew already met this character?" or "have they ever been here before?" or even "is this thing what they should be holding?".
We have addressed most of the continuity questions like these during the writing part of this process, but unfortunately I've still found a few things that merit adjustments on this final pass. They were functional before, and they would get you to the end of the Chapter, but there were some edge cases where things didn't make sense. A few of these needed adjustments to the game elements, and some other cases have needed rewriting of text within Blurbs. Each of these take time to fix, either writing brand-new text or re-building part of the narrative tree and re-checking the game elements. There aren't a lot of these changes, but they do take longer than reading a blurb and finding that it's ready to go. A couple of the early Book 2 Chapters had more of these issues than were present in Book 1, so it took some extra time to get through. The narrative tree in the later Book 2 Chapters is in much better shape.
Copy Editing
After the continuity check is complete for a Chapter, the copy editor checks for things like grammar and style consistency, making sure that what we're saying is what we mean to say.
Almanac
We're also reviewing the Almanac entries, and making sure that we have entries for all of the places, items, and people who need them. Each entry is also getting its pronunciation guide (if it doesn't have one already).
Playtesting Update
Internal playtesting has continued on the Chapters that have not yet gone through to the final continuity check. This playtesting looks at one pathway through the Chapter at a time, checking to make sure that it's fun and/or interesting and calling out any issues that will need more focused attention. As mentioned above, the remaining chapters look to be in good shape!
What's Next
There are 5.5 Chapters (Plus 2 short interludes) left to get through this final review process. What we've learned so far is that it's hard to tell how long a Chapter is going to take to review until we actually do the continuity check, but I am going as quickly as I can without sacrificing quality. Revisions and additional writing for the rulebook will happen when we do the review for the half-length Chapter.
As mentioned above, review of the Almanac is also ongoing.
Overall, editing has taken longer than anticipated because we hit a couple of rough spots where writing work was necessary, but we're on track to be print ready later this Spring.
We are also faced with the dilemma of finding a way to continue working without disturbing Ivy, who is very comfortable:
Finally, Elephants in Cargo Bays
From Chris:
The backdrop for all of this, of course, is Tariff nonsense. Right now there're a lot of people in our government making some decisions that we find quite questionable and disagree with, and it's impacting everyone. The situation is fluid and changing daily, and we're keeping focused on wrapping up the editing process rather then entering panic mode. When editing's done and we are print ready we'll figure out the best logistical way to get games to you all. Trying to plan in advance for a system that produces chaos daily is a bit of a fool's errand, but we have a lot of options and good partners both domestic and international.
My sincere hope for the sake of everyone in a LOT of industries is that this situation comes to a close sooner rather than later. I'm sorry to any of you who are directly affected. The best way through this mess is kindness to each other - love always wins, somehow, some way.
